A Microcontroller with 96% Power-Conversion Efficiency using Stacked Voltage Domains

Conference paper (2016)

Authors

KL Blutman NXP Semiconductors
A. Kapoor NXP Semiconductors
Arjun Majumdar NXP Semiconductors
J.G. Martinez NXP Semiconductors
J. Echeverri NXP Semiconductors
L. Sevat NXP Semiconductors
A. van der Wel NXP Semiconductors
H Fatemi NXP Semiconductors
J.P. de Gyvez NXP Semiconductors
Kofi A.A. Makinwa Microelectronics
K.A.A. Makinwa Microelectronics
Department
Microelectronics
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Published Date

22-09-2016

Language

English

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Department

Microelectronics

Abstract

This paper presents a CMOS 40nm microcontroller where for the first time, stacked voltage domains are used. The system features an ARM Cortex M0+ processor, 4kB ROM, 16kB SRAM, peripherals, and an on-chip switched-capacitor voltage regulator (SCVR). By using voltage stacking the test chip achieves state-of-the-art (96%) power-conversion efficiency and observed power savings run from 23% to 63% depending upon the payload current, while supply voltage variations are reduced from 5.6mV to 3.8mV (RMS).